


Operation: Kettle

by vinnie2757



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Army, Disability, Explicit Language, F/M, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Skinny Steve, War is hell, everyone is here everyone has a bad time and everyone has some semblance of a happy ending, inaccurate military everything but listen im only one person, listen i love non linear story telling if you've read barton farm you know that i dont believe in it, no serum in this universe, some time jumping going on to tell the story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 00:46:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11025054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinnie2757/pseuds/vinnie2757
Summary: [Modern military au] Clint Barton is a 75th Ranger, and sometimes, it's more trouble than it's worth.Including: the rescue of Tony Stark, the raising of two children, the attempted control of one Steven Grant Rogers, the unearthing of a conspiracy, political conversations at dinner, terrible banter, therapy at three am in Dennys, Betty Ross getting drunk and yelling at her dad, and a couple of spectacular explosions.





	Operation: Kettle

 

**OPERATION: IRON MONGER**

**U.S. MILITARY: DELTA, 75 TH RANGERS**

**LOCATION: GULMIRA, AFGHANISTAN**

**APRIL 26 TH, 2010**

 

Tony Stark looks like shit. One of the Delta guys on the other side of the village says as such as soon as he’s in sight.

‘Oh, shut up,’ Clint spits, and shifts his weight.

A little more to the left, come on Tony, fucking lean a little bit to the left.

‘Now is not the time to start a pleasant chat,’ he adds when he hears at least three of them open their mouths. ‘If I miss, I am going to kill Tony Stark, so keep your mouths shut and let me focus.’

Jaws clack, and the only sound in the village is the raucous laughter of the Ten Rings soldiers kicking the shit out of a father. Clint’s a father. He considers swinging his rifle to the right, to where the soldiers are.

‘Kill them first,’ he says, and hates how cold he sounds.

The son is screaming, and Clint breathes through his nose.

His scarf is spit-damp, sticks against his nose and jaw.

Sweat drips down his temple, stinging his eye.

A little more to the left. Stark doesn’t look like he’s planning on moving.

They’d been crawling through the sand for what felt like a lifetime, sneaking their way through Ten Rings patrols and under a fence to get to where they are now, hidden behind some sandy stones, a decent ways away and with a decent vantage point. It’s a little close, personally, for Clint. He doesn’t tend to snipe this close. But the boys need to be close enough to get in there in there in the immediate aftermath so Tony Stark isn’t, you know, immediately shot. And Clint’s only one man. The other sniper on the team deferred to him. Best shot in the army and all that. Fuck sake. Clint only did sniper school because they wanted him to, and he only joined the Rangers because it was better than putting up with G.I. Joe and his merry band of wankers. Fuck sake. Tony fucking Stark. He didn’t sign up for this, and here he fucking is.

He wipes his forehead as best he can with gritty, sandy fingers, and does little to help himself.

‘His legs are broken,’ someone whispers. Clint forgets his name. ‘Look at the way he stands. His legs are broken.’

‘Look at the car battery in his hand,’ someone else says.

Clint is nearly forty, and he feels too old to deal with this shit. He should be retiring by now, back home with his two fucking children and his wife and they were talking about getting a dog, but the Bed-Stuy place they’ve got isn’t really suitable for two young kids, never mind a dog. Laura wants to go home, back to Idaho. She’s been taking extended vacations these days; Clint doesn’t blame her. He wants to go back to Idaho too, and he hates the fucking place. Anywhere is better than here. He misses his family. But he doesn’t have time to think about them, so he doesn’t. He’ll get this fucking job done and then he’ll kick up a fuss with Colonel Rhodes, and he’s complain to Old Man Fury back in Benning, and hell, he’ll even holler at Phillips if Phillips is inclined to go. He’ll take them on. He hasn’t had a proper leave in almost ten years. He’s missed the birth of both of his children. He missed their first words, their first steps, the first time Cooper fell off his bicycle, the first time Lila did a floor routine in their living room and fell over her own feet trying to do a handstand. He’s missed it all.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ says a third. Dugan. Dugan’s a good man, Clint likes him. He’d personally broken the neck of some Ten Rings fuck who’d been brandishing an semi-automatic a little too enthusiastically. ‘Barton, orders?’

Clint swallows, draws a breath. Sweat drips into his eyes and he blinks it away, stinging on a sandy abrasion on his cheekbone. He’ll think about his family later, when he’s alone at a collapsible table on the far side of the mess hall, trying to write out the report for this clusterfuck. ‘On my signal.’

A chorus of whispers ask what the signal is.

The bullet whizzes so close past Tony Stark’s face that it sears his cheek and splits the skin before burrowing its way into his captor’s eyeball. Clint’s got his rifle up and he’s moving as soon as the shot connects, and the soldiers kicking the father’s face are dead before he’s hit the ground. He makes for Stark, ducking behind cover when fire comes too close to him.

As he gets within ten feet of Stark, an IED goes off on the far side of the village. Later, experts will say it was made from scraps from one of the Stark Industries weapons. Stark will clutch at Clint’s sleeve, and look sick. Clint will press a hand to the back of his head, and peel his fingers away to wrap them around the battery. For now, all it is, all that IED is, it’s just that. It’s an IED, and it’s exploded, and people – innocent people, the natives of Gulmira, held hostage by the Ten Rings – they’re dead.

More are injured. Clint can barely smell the burning flesh over the sour stink of his scarf, sweaty and dusty.

Stark has gone down, nothing to hold him up now, and he’s crawled to the wall, curled there with his head down and protecting the car battery like it’s diamond. The cables leading into his chest make Clint think it’s more precious than that.

‘Where the fuck is pararescue?’ he barks to a crackle of static from his earpiece.

The boys are too busy with the engagement to really answer him, but he hears a couple non-committal responses before his earpiece is blasted with more static from the gunfire.

He ducks, grabs Stark by his ratty collar and drags him around the corner of the building. The other hand is already pulling his sidearm free and three bullets take down the three soldiers coming for them. Someone in his ear whistles.

‘They weren’t lying,’ they say.

They sound too jovial. Clint swallows dust and grit and the taste of blood. He’s bit his cheeks. He always bites his cheeks.

‘Stark,’ he says, yanking his scarf down and crouching in front of the limp, emaciated body in front of him. ‘Look at me. Tony? Tony, look at me.’

 Still curled around his battery, Stark’s eyes flick up, dirt brown and bruised black.

‘My name’s Barton,’ Clint says, and scrubs his face. Another soldier rounds the corner, and Clint puts him out of his misery. ‘I’m here to get you out of here.’

‘They knew,’ Stark croaks. ‘They knew you were coming.’

‘We know they did,’ Clint agrees, and reaches for Stark’s sweat-damp armpits, hauls him into a sitting position. He moves the car battery to the engineer’s lap, and looks at him seriously. ‘That’s why they sent us.’

Stark considers this. His thumbs rub over the battery, the worn label atop it. A caution, if Clint remembers right, but after ten years, he still can’t read the languages worth a damn, and cars were never his forte to begin with. He’s too thin, gaunt and hollow and Clint can only imagine the shit he’s been through. Torture, no doubt, there’s ill-set bones and he’ll be lucky if he walks right again. Clint feels an urge to just – just – when they get him into the hospital, Clint wants to be the one to get him clean, to get him to eat, to call Pepper Potts and tell her that her – her – her boss? It was never clear, intelligence always seemed confused about that – he wants to tell her that Stark’s alive, he’s not okay, but he’s alive, he’s home.

But that’s a stupid urge so he stamps on it. Hard. It’s the Dad in him, he knows.

‘We need to move,’ he says, touching his ear. ‘We need to get him out of the village, and pararescue need to get off their fucking _asses_ and come to us.’

The screaming son hasn’t stopped. It’s a different pitch of screaming, no screams for his father’s safety now, just screams for his father’s arms to hold him, wordless and terrified. Clint vaguely feels the weight of Cooper in his arms, the first time he held him, two months old, and already so big. He’s going to be tall as Barney by the time he’s done growing.

He swallows. Stark leans forward, grabs his sleeve, clutches at it with brittle, twisted fingers.

‘They’re using my weapons,’ he says, as though Clint hadn’t seen the gleaming logo emblazoned on every box piled man-high across the village. He’d seen the surveillance.

‘I know,’ he says, and twists his pistol to show him the silver dash. ‘So are we.’

Everyone uses Stark Industries weapons these days. Hammer tries to contend, but Stark provides the highest quality. Clint’s used Hammer rifles in the past. He doesn’t miss. But the shots aren’t as clean. He filed an official complaint, and he tells Stark this.

It doesn’t get a smile, or the smug twist of his nose that Stark gets when he shows up the opposition, but Clint didn’t expect it to. His thumbs rub harder at the stickers on the battery.

It’s been a minute, maybe, it’s dragged for a lifetime, but barely any time has passed. Clint hauls Stark up again, apologises for the agony shooting through his legs, and drags him into a secluded, hidden corner.

‘Do you know how to shoot a gun?’ he asks.

Stark’s lip wobbles, but he nods. ‘Of course I do.’

Clint pulls one of his hands free of the battery, presses the gun into it, curls Stark’s finger around the trigger, pushes it down and away from him.

‘What are you giving it to me for?’ he asks.

‘Just in case someone,’ Clint starts, and then stops. ‘Just in case someone comes to steal the battery. What if someone comes for your battery? Gotta keep it safe, right?’

Stark stares at him. Clint smiles. Stark swallows, and nods.

‘Gotta keep it safe.’

Before Clint can stop himself, he drags a hand over Stark’s hair, brushes the dripping, sweat-wet clumps of unwashed hair from his face. He’s almost himself again, save the sun-gold skin blackened with dust and dirt and filth.

‘Stay here,’ he says, ‘I’ll be back, I promise.’

Stark raises his free hand, leaving the battery alone. He makes a peace sign. Clint feels something bubble in his chest, and makes the peace sign back before sweeping to his feet and out of the corner, back into the fray.

Ten minutes of ducking and diving and narrowly avoiding bullets pass before Clint roars, ‘where the fuck is pararescue?’

He feels like a parrot, barking the same thing over and over again. He’s never known pararescue to never be on site as soon as the fight starts, ready to extract. There’s no sign of the helicopter, no sign of a single red beret.

One of Delta appears at his side, and they crouch, backs pressed to a wall, bullets chipping at the rock over their heads. After a few moments, the soldier throws his rifle over his shoulder, empties the last of his clip, and the chipping rock stops getting chipped with a strangled scream.

‘I don’t think pararescue are coming,’ he says, as he reloads with more aggression than necessary, and Clint grunts.

‘Why?’ he demands. ‘We were told they’d be in the air the second we opened fire. They should be here. Has anyone got radio contact at all?’

The soldier shakes his head. ‘Dugan mentioned he hadn’t heard from them while we were waiting to move in, but we figured it was just, them not speaking, you know? They can be pretty quiet guys.’

‘Not speaking at all, just as an op’s starting? Bullshit.’

More gunfire, more screaming. Another IED.

‘Fuck it,’ Clint barks. ‘Finish this up, I’m getting Stark out myself.’

‘He’s got two broken legs,’ the soldier replies, and Clint meets his gaze.

‘I’m not waiting for pararescue,’ Clint tells him. ‘I can’t do that to him. The humvee’s what, two miles out? I can do that in about twelve minutes.’

‘Alone, maybe, not with him on your back.’

Clint shrugs. ‘We’ll see. Finish this.’

It’s almost over, and Clint takes down a few more of the Ten Rings soldiers harassing hostages before he gets back to Stark. They salute him, and he salutes back. There’s a girl, older than his, older than his baby, and she waves at him, her face splattered with blood and dust. He waves past the nausea in his gut, and ducks back into the corner where he’d left Stark. He’s still sat with one hand on the battery and the other clutching the gun. He’s taken his finger off the trigger, and he doesn’t aim it at Clint when he comes into view.

‘Good,’ Clint says, and crouches. ‘Give me the gun back, Tony, you’re all done. I can take it now. We’re getting out of here.’

‘What?’

‘I’m gonna get you out. Our humvee isn’t far. A couple of miles out, just over the hill. Won’t take ten minutes to get you there.’

‘I can’t walk, Barton,’ he says, and Clint nods.

‘I know. I’m going to carry you. All I need you to do is hold onto your battery. I’ll do the rest. Just look after your battery for me.’

It takes him less than a minute to rearrange his equipment to safely carry Stark over his shoulders, one wrist in his hand, holding one leg in place with the bend of his elbow. The other leg hangs over his shoulder, free hand holding the car battery tight. He’s lighter than he looks, and that worries Clint for half a second. He can only spare half a second.

‘You alright?’ he asks.

‘These uniforms are shit,’ Tony replies, and Clint barks out a laugh before shoving to his feet and taking off for the edge of town.

Dugan sees Clint moving, and says, ‘wait thirty seconds, Ranger, I’ll come to you.’

Clint looks at the edge of the town, but ducks himself and Tony behind cover, and waits. Dugan skids into view around a corner, and jerks his head in the direction of the humvee.

‘Go, I’ve got your six.’

Clint salutes him, and takes off running again. He keeps his gaze on the direction of the truck, and his focus on keeping his feet moving, his lungs working. He breathes hard, and holds Tony as tight as he dares.

He’s not even six minutes down when everything suddenly slows to a stop. He doesn’t hear the crack of the shot, not from this distance, but it’s nowhere near the longest distance for an accurate rifle shot. That’s currently one and a half miles. Clint knows this because he used to have the record and then some British shit took him from him.

‘Shit!’ he snarls, and stumbles, leg giving out under him, and they tumble, roll across the sand.

Tony makes a pig-like, agonised noise, and Clint’s is not too unlike it.

‘Barton?’ Dugan yells over the radio.

‘I’ve been shot,’ Clint replies, and pushes a hand against the agony flaring like naked flames against his waist. He swallows thick, breathes hard through his nose. ‘I’ve been – fuck – someone’s got a rifle; take him down, fucking hell.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Goose, one of the few Rangers Rhodes managed to convince Ross to allow. He’d spouted some shit about how Clint couldn’t work without his fireteam. Clint trusts Goose to get the fucker and kill him dead.

‘Stay where you are,’ Dugan says, ‘I’m coming to you, I’ll get you and Stark out.’

‘No,’ Clint barks, and rolls to his feet, tests out his weight. It hurts, but he’s still got full motion. He’s sprained his ankle, he thinks, buckling under him, and he knows he’s going to have to ignore it. He grabs Stark’s arm, twists him and drags him back over his shoulders. ‘I’m alright. It was a glancing blow, they missed, near enough. It’s just a scratch.’

He’s out of breath just dragging Stark over his shoulders and he still has over a mile to run him.

‘Your arm’s off!’ one of the marines calls back, and Clint doesn’t laugh, can’t.

‘Dugan.’

‘Stay safe,’ Dugan replies, and the radio abruptly goes silent.

‘Alright,’ Clint says, rubs his thumb over Stark’s too-bony wrist. ‘Alright, let’s get you back to the humvee.’

‘Fun-vee,’ Stark replies. ‘We had the fun-vee. Got – got blown to shit. Was fun until then, though.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Clint says, rubs his thumb across the jut of bone in Stark’s wrist. ‘This one’s not fun.’

‘That’s okay,’ Stark huffs. ‘Had enough of fun.’

He can’t run so much now, but he manages a jog for a minute at a time. It slows them down to near enough twenty minutes, but nobody shoots at them anymore. Half a mile left, and the humvee’s nearly in sight, a camouflaged smear against a stone wall. It doesn’t blend very well, but it blends well enough, Clint supposes. He has to look twice to be sure it’s their humvee he’s running for.

He pushes himself that last half-mile, sprints it as best he can. Stark has been mumbling to himself the entire way, and Clint’s exhausted. He can feel blood trickling down his leg, sticking to his pants. It could just be sweat, he supposes. But his side hurts, _hurts_ and not just aches the way he always aches when he’s carrying a load on his shoulders.

‘You’ll get medals for this,’ Stark says as Clint opens the humvee door and eases him into the seat. ‘They’ll plaster you in them. You got shot. Purple Heart for sure.’

‘I don’t want medals,’ Clint says, and reaches around him for the seat belt. ‘I’ll be glad to go home.’

‘Where is home?’ Stark asks, and Clint staggers around the humvee to the driver’s side, climbs in and straps himself in.

‘Brooklyn,’ he says, relaxes in the seat, puts his head back, breathes. His hands press into his ribs, and the colour drains from his face. ‘With my wife and kids. Nice little place, three bed apartment in Bed-Stuy.’

‘Nice?’

‘Can be. Bit of trouble, depending on what kids are around. They’re getting better, though.’

Stark hums.

They sit there for a while, both of them breathing hard. Clint pulls the scarf from around his neck to pad his wound with, pressing it as hard as he can. Two miles away, distant now, the sound of gunfire and explosions still echo, bouncing off the clear, heaven-blue sky. Tony flinches any time there’s an explosion, and Clint tries to reassure him, but can’t seem to find the energy any more.

‘All right,’ he says eventually, straightening up and strapping himself in. ‘Alright. Let’s – let’s get to the LZ. See if pararescue have shown up yet.’

‘What about the others?’ Tony asks.

‘There’s another humvee,’ Clint says, ‘they’ll be alright.’

The drive is mostly silent. Clint keeps twisting to check over his shoulder, and Tony folds down over the battery and says nothing until they arrive at a barely-marked LZ, a half-drawn square of stones. A chopper is waiting, but it’s not one of pararescue’s; there are no red berets inside.

Inside is Colonel Rhodes, mouth a thin line and his brow damp with sweat. As soon as he sees the humvee, he’s jumping out, and he’s waiting for them when Clint stops and kills the engine.

‘What are you doing here?’ he demands, and marches to Tony’s side to begin unbuckling him. ‘Pararescue should have brought him.’

‘Pararescue never came,’ Clint replies, and unbuckles his seatbelt, makes to get out of the humvee, but Tony is grasping blindly at his sleeve, tugging him back. ‘I’m just getting out of the car, Tony, you’re alright.’

‘He’s hurt,’ Tony says to Rhodes, and shakes his head when Rhodes moves to get him out of the humvee. ‘My legs are broken. He was shot, Rhodey, he got shot ‘cause of me.’

Rhodes goes very grey, and his eyes are stalk-like.

‘You’ve been _shot_?’ he demands, ‘where?’

Clint straightens, and the blood is staining half of his uniform red. Every breath feels like its pulling the wound another inch. It’s blistering agony, and he’s trying his best to ignore it.

There’s so many questions Rhodes wants to ask, Clint can feel the bombardment building, ready to begin, and Clint doesn’t want to answer them just yet.

In the end, Rhodes settles on; ‘how bad is it?’

‘Me? I’m alright, it was a graze, I’ll be fine. We need to get Stark back to base as soon as possible. I’ll explain everything then, sir, I promise. I just – I want to make sure he’s safe and sound first. Mission first, sir.’

Rhodes looks like he’s about to bite his head off, but he nods, and carefully picks Tony up, saying nothing about the car battery attached to his best friend’s chest. He’s been with Tony for years, Clint remembers, vaguely, some article Laura told him about after the kidnap, an interview with Rhodes, but it had been pretty low on the list of things Clint needed to remember. Seeing Tony with a car battery attached to his chest probably doesn’t rank high on the list of weird shit Rhodes has seen.

Clint eases himself to his feet, and catches Rhodes looking at him. The expression is clear; Stark is too thin. Far, _far_ too thin. He shakes his head, steadies himself, and makes his way to the chopper. Rhodes has Stark sat and strapped in, and turns back to help Clint up.

‘We need to leave now,’ Rhodes tells the pilot, when he gets a proper look at Clint. ‘We need to get both of them to the nearest hospital.’

‘What about the others?’ Clint asks.

‘We’ll send another chopper to pick them up,’ Rhodes assures him, and finds the chin strap for Clint’s helmet, pulls it off to press the back of his hand to Clint’s forehead. ‘Strap yourself in, soldier.’

Tony makes a grabbing gesture, and Clint staggers to the seat next to him, drops hard into it and fumbles the strap twice. His fingers are shaking. His hands never shake.

They’re airborne when Tony’s head drops onto his shoulder, and Clint checks his pulse with unsteady fingers. Rhodes is sat opposite them, watching.

‘I’m alright,’ Tony grumbles, and slaps at Clint’s hand. ‘Just tired. It’s been a long few months. You aren’t comfortable.’

‘I’m in field gear.’

‘It’s shit.’

They lapse back into silence. Clint’s head drops onto Tony’s, cheek against his hair, and he shuts his eyes. He’s tired; it’s been months for Tony, literal months, but Clint is exhausted.

‘Getting shot is hard work,’ he says, ‘don’t do it.’

‘I’ll try not to,’ Rhodes says, ‘oi, stay awake, Barton, don’t you pass out on me.’

‘I’m alright,’ Clint replies with a crooked grin. He waves a hand, dismissive.

Rhodes looks at them sat there; Tony is emaciated, sun-brown with a car battery attached to his chest, and Barton is blood-pale, sweating and shivering, half of his uniform blood-brown and the rest dirt-brown.

‘Barton,’ Rhodes warns, ‘stay with me.’

‘I’m here,’ Clint breathes, ‘not going anywhere.’

Tony falls asleep after maybe ten minutes in the air, huffing each breath as though it personally offends him. He looks more relaxed like this, calmer. He won’t be in any less pain, but he’s not struggling so much, that’s good.

Clint passes out briefly, but flinches back to consciousness when Rhodes flings a magazine at him.

‘Fuck off,’ he grunts, and then, grudgingly, adds, ‘sir.’

‘Don’t pass out again,’ Rhodes says, and Clint nods, straightens up.

By the time they’ve touched down, he’s half-gone, and the medics bundle him onto a stretcher. He’s offended, because Tony gets a wheelchair.

‘I want a wheelchair,’ he says.

‘Sergeant Barton, you’re dying,’ the medic tells him, and he laughs.

‘Sure. Sure. Tell me when it’s done.’

He hears a huff of his name, and then nothing.

 

* * *

 

**BAGRAM AIRFIELD, AFGHANISTAN**

**FORTY-EIGHT HOURS EARLIER**

 

He’s due to fly home, actually, when Colonel Rhodes comes into the mess hall and plonks himself down opposite Clint, who’s trying to spell ‘accommodate’ with varying success, and also eat his last few mouthfuls of the day’s food, which is also achieving varying success, because Clint cannot, no matter how hard he tries, multitask.

Adding Colonel Rhodes into the mix really doesn’t make it much easier.

‘Sergeant,’ Rhodes says, in the kind of easy tone that you greet a friend with.

‘Sir,’ Clint replies around a mouthful of peas. It’s not his best look.

Rhodes has seen worse, and obligingly waits for Clint to finish shovelling peas and potatoes into his mouth before speaking again.

‘It’s two Cs and two Ms,’ he says, helpfully, and Clint studies his fifth attempt at spelling.

‘Hey?’ he asks.

‘A-C-C-O-M-M-O-D-A-T-E,’ Rhodes says, and Clint hurries to write it down.

‘Thanks, sir,’ he says, and then straightens, salutes with his pen. ‘What brings you my way?’

 Rhodes is Air Force and has very little reason to be lurking around the Army’s mess hall. Clint’s spoken to him a few times over the near two decades he’d been serving, after the disaster that was Sokovia, and then the first few offensives in the self-professed war on terror, which they all know is really only a war for oil and political power. He’s alright, as officers go, and he hears Rhodes has a close tie to Stark, which has probably shaken him a bit. They’d all heard the news, of course, and it had been. Awkward, to say the least.

‘I have a mission for you,’ he says, ‘urgent.’

‘Oh?’

‘We’ve found Tony.’

Clint stops drawing a flower on the side of the page and looks at the Colonel, looks at the grey edges to his face, the shadows in his eyes.

‘You’ve found him?’

‘Some techie managed to intercept Ten Rings communications, decoded a message about preparations to publicly execute Stark on the twenty-sixth.’

‘That’s two days from now.’

‘I have your fireteam,’ Rhodes says, ‘I had to fight to get them, Ross wanted just Delta going in there, but I got you your fireteam. You’re moving out tonight; it’s a day’s journey and they have the headstart.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Gulmira.’

Clint has heard horror stories of Gulmira. He has heard enough horror stories about Gulmira that he does not want to go to Gulmira, but the set jaw on Rhodes’ face makes him think that he doesn’t have a fucking choice. He rubs his mouth, picks at the dry skin at the corners of his nose.

‘Right, sir,’ he says. ‘I’ll go report.’

‘Finish your letter,’ Rhodes tells him. ‘I’ll priority mail it later today.’

Clint, halfway to the door, turns back.

‘Thank you,’ he says.

‘I’m sorry,’ Rhodes says. ‘It’s going to be tough.’

Clint knows this. He knows that he won’t be going home any time soon.

 

* * *

 

**CRAIG JOINT THEATER HOSPITAL, BAGRAM, AFGHANISTAN**

**APRIL 27 TH, 2010**

 

Clint comes around to find Phillips sat at his bedside, looking over some confidentially marked manilas and with a frown creasing his face.

‘Fuck’s happened now?’ Clint asks, bleary with morphine and his own poor life choices.

‘The paperwork for _Iron Monger_ ,’ Phillips replies without missing a beat, ‘you shits sure do like to make my life difficult.’

Clint closes his eyes and slaps a hand to his face. It thuds against his eye socket harder than he intended it to and he whines. It’s not dignified, but he’s in too much pain and too sedated to really express such a pithy emotion as a mildly inconveniencing pain when it feels like someone’s ripped half his belly out.

As it turns out, that is pretty much what happened.

Some more time passes; he opens his eyes to find himself alone, and then opens them again to find an army nurse – who is prettier than he really ought to be, but looking harrowed by the shit he’s seen, and Clint finds it a tragedy when pretty people are sent out to the war, what a waste of beauty, and Laura would never let him live it down if she caught him calling another man pretty. Not because she cares, but because she’d find it hilarious that he can enunciate such an opinion of another man, but he can’t call his wife of a decade pretty without flushing and stuttering and resolutely not meeting her gaze.

It’s probably his greatest failing.

‘Where’s Phillips?’ he croaks, and the nurse leaps a mile.

‘Ah – Sergeant Barton, sir!’ the nurse chirps, heels snapping together and saluting and Clint has hated that since the day he got the stripe.

People thinking they need to salute him, what a fucking joke.

But the kid is flushing a little, more than the nurses normally flush at having anyone of rank in their wards, whether it’s an NCO or not, and Clint heaves a heavy sigh. His belly hurts, his face hurts, his arms ache, his ankle aches. He wants to go home. He stares at the ceiling for a moment, and the nurse fusses around with charts and things on a table and everything except paying attention to his patient, and Clint begins to wonder what the fuck has happened in the days he’s been out.

‘Kid,’ Clint sighs.

‘Sir, you were – well you were shot, sir, you – uh – haha, it’s weird, we have all these soldiers coming through, right, and you’d think, you’d think I wouldn’t be so flustered! But haha – oh man, you _saved_ Tony Stark, sir! It’s a – well that’s a damn fine thing you did there, sir.’

Clint squints at him. He squints and scratches his head, and digs a knuckle into the gritty corner of his eye.

‘Kid,’ he says, because Clint is too old, and this kid isn’t really a kid, he’s got to be in his thirties by now, surely to God. ‘The hell happened after we landed?’

‘You were shot quite badly, sir, straight through the side. It missed your organs, God bless, but it tore you up. You died on the operating table twice, sir.’

Well shit.

‘Is Stark alright?’

‘We looked him over,’ the nurse says, ‘and Rhodes had him sent home, sir.’

‘I want to go home.’

‘Not yet,’ says a voice from the doorway, and Clint turns his head.

Phillips, frowning as always, his arms folded and his sleeves rolled. He’s looking tired, harrowed, like he’s been fighting over something for days.

‘Colonel Phillips, sir,’ he slurs, and pushes on his wrist, tries to sit upright.

The nurse makes a noise, but before it’s articulated as words, pain shoots through him and Clint lets himself flop back onto the mattress

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’ve been shot, Barton, don’t be ridiculous. Thank you, Davies, I’ll take over from here, there’s a couple of lads from the patrol wanting attention down the corridor.’

Davies recognises the dismissal and salutes them both before hurrying out, leaving Phillips and Clint alone.

‘We need to make sure you’re healing up fine before we send you back to a stateside hospital. But don’t worry, we’ll send you to one in New York, your kids can visit you there. When one becomes available, I’ll have a laptop brought over for you to call them. We called Laura – well, Fury called Laura, you know how these things go. She knows you were shot, but you’re alive and well and just waiting for the all clear before you come home. Fury says that she was chomping at the bit to get on a flight over here. You sure married a fine lass.’

Clint barks out a laugh. ‘She’s something.’

Phillips drags a chair over and sits, watching Clint’s face.

‘I’ve been in meetings all week,’ he says, ‘about Operation Iron Monger. We’ve had a lot of paperwork to do about it. Most of it was about you, you’ll be pleased to note.’

Clint curls his lip. ‘Week? What you talkin’ ‘bout me for?’

‘Yes, week, you’ve been out for a few days. It’s the thirtieth now. And, well, you’ve got medals coming your way, I’m sure your little ones will be entertained. Purple Heart, obviously. We’ve been debating which degree of service medal you’re getting. Didn’t do enough for the Medal of Honour, I'm afraid, son.’

‘I’m thirty-nine,’ Clint reminds him.

‘You’re a baby,’ Phillips retorts.

Clint blinks, and sighs.

‘Don’t really care about medals,’ he admits. ‘Kinda just want to go home, y’know?’

Phillips nods, and sits back in his chair. He looks very serious for a minute, and Clint tries to wake up the rest of the way.

‘I have good news and bad news,’ he says.

‘Alright,’ Clint nods.

‘Good news; I managed to get you a pay rise, _Captain_. Bad news; you’re officially on the Ten Rings’ shit list. They’ve got a kill or capture order on your head. Ross has been arguing about telling you all week. I figured you’d want to know. If you wanted to retire to training duty, no one would think less of you after what you went through.’

‘I haven’t been through shit,’ Clint replies. ‘Didn’t get any organs, the shot was too far away and he didn’t account for the drop off _and_ the wind. It was sloppy, real sloppy. If he was a trained sniper, he needs to get his fuckin’ eyes tested. And a sprained ankle ain’t shit these days.’

‘Broken, actually. I’ll try and get you back home as soon as possible,’ Phillips promises. ‘I figured you’d want to know. It’s up to you what to do, just don’t go running your mouth about it. You should be proud of yourself; Stark’s the only other person we know with a bounty.’

Clint takes a breath; the morphine is beginning to wear off. His belly hurts. His ankle throbs. Broken, and he ran and drove on it, fucking hey. Cooper already takes too much after his Daddy, he don’t need to know the silly things his Daddy does in the heat of the moment.

‘What does that mean?’ he asks. ‘How am I supposed to serve with an active bounty?’

‘It’s going to take you months to recover, Barton, you had two deaths and major surgery. You’ll be here for a month at least, to be sure you’re stabilised, and then you’ll have to recover even more stateside, rehabilitation, gentle exercise, retraining. You’d be pushing it to be back by Christmas. By then, we’ll have taken out the worst of the Ten Rings, and the bounty won’t count for much.’

Clint considers this.

‘I want to go home,’ he says. And then, because he knows Phillips will understand, ‘I miss my kids.’

Phillips looks at him; contrary to popular belief, Colonel Chester Phillips is not a cruel man, or even a mean one. He’s harsh, because he has to be. He’s hard-faced, because his men need him to be hard-faced. But he looks at Clint, and Clint looks at him, and something like a knot forms in his throat.

‘I’ll go and find that doctor of yours,’ he says after an abrupt cough. ‘See what she reckons. Cho’s the best in her field, she’ll know if you’re fit to fly stateside.’

Clint nods, thanks him. ‘It hurts,’ he adds.

‘Getting shot usually does, Captain,’ Phillips replies, and Clint huffs out a laugh, asks that Phillips gets him some more morphine before putting a hand over his eyes and swallowing thickly.

Phillips leaves him to it, and goes to find that Doctor Cho and her no-doubt busy hands.

 

* * *

 

 

**PRIVATE HOSPITAL, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, USA**

**APRIL 27 TH, 2010**

 

Tony wakes up in New York. Funny, he’d been sure he was still in Afghanistan, at least the part of Afghanistan where Barton was. As he sits up, vision turning sand yellow before wobbling back to clinical white and grey, he mouths the name to himself. Barton had been - been - he’d been good. A good man. He hadn’t asked questions, hadn’t looked at him weird, like some of the marines did (though Tony is man enough to acknowledge the last time some of those marines had seen him, he’d been very drunk and self important) and he hadn’t looked at him like he was just a job. He’d actually looked at him like he was a person, one in a very bad way who needed help. He hadn’t even really paid much attention to the battery, ‘cept to make sure Tony kept it safe.

He feels disgusting, slimy and gritty and sweaty. He’s sure that they - they, they, they. Nurses, perhaps, and the thought of someone, anyone, touching him makes him queasy - must have given him at least a bed bath. This was a civilian hospital in New York, frequented by the rich and famous.

He manages to get his feet on the floor, tugging his IV over. The battery is on a trolley, which he also manages to pull towards him. He pushes on the handles, and it takes physics, rather than weight, to lift one wheeled end. He holds the IV with one hand and the trolley in the other, figures he’ll lever himself up.

It takes a moment of staring at them to realise that his feet are in splints. They’re wrapped up tight, and held together with bits of twine. He could have made better splints in his fucking _cave._

‘Okay,’ he tells himself, with a firm nod. ‘Okay. On your feet, sol – ‘

He stops, frowns. He is not a soldier. He cannot tell himself to get on his feet because he is not a soldier. Barton could say it, with eyes like stormy skies, and a thin, crooked line of a mouth. He could do it. Someone should call him and make him convince Tony to get on his feet.

He hopes Barton is alive. He’d looked in a bad way when they got wheeled in two different directions. If Barton’s dead, he’ll set up a trust fund for his kids, triple his military pension, keep the wife secure for the rest of her life. The least he can do. But Barton’s a strong guy, managed to run with a bullet in his gut and Tony on his shoulders, and he won’t _die_ from it, he’s got to be stronger than that, surely.

As it turns out, standing on splints with two broken legs, even if you’ve got an IV and a trolley to support you, is actually hard. Like, impossible hard.

Rolling flat onto his back and lying in the puddle his burst IV bag’s forming, he stares at the ceiling. Somewhere down the corridor a door opens, banging against the stopper and maybe bouncing back to hit whoever it was opening it like that in the face.

‘Where is he? Let me see him. I am his _next of kin_ , you let me into that room, _now_. Please.’

Please, he mouths to the ceiling, which whirls a bit, the panels warping into crooked trapezoids.

He’d missed Pepper, remembers thinking about her in the first few weeks. Thinking about her fire and her ice and her fingertips like warm gingerbread.

‘Tony? Tony, oh _God_.’

Pepper appears above him, fire-red hair haloed in the halogen lights, and he sighs, soft. He tries to smile. It hurts, so he stops trying. Pepper’s eyes are tight, her mouth a jagged twist, and she looks like she’s slapped her makeup on, rather than putting it on. Her dark circles show through the concealer, purplish smudges shaped like his thumbs. He almost reaches up to touch them. Almost.

‘Hello,’ he says, and she barks with laughter, wriggles her hands under him to tuck in his sweaty, stinking armpits and haul him up to a sitting position.

It itches, her hands on his skin, nails scratching against his armpit hair and he flinches away, hands coming up as if to defend himself. Pepper couldn’t hurt him if she tried, he knows that, logically he knows that she’ll never lay a hand on him, but he’s not _clean_. He’ll make her ill if she touches him.

‘Ssh,’ she coos, and touches his hair, greasy and unwashed and laying limp where she strokes it, ‘I’ve got you, Tony, you’re alright.’

‘I’m dirty,’ he says.

‘You’re sweaty,’ she replies, ‘I’ve seen you worse.’

He doubts that. She’s seen him drunk, and with girls, and sick, and doused in fire extinguisher foam, but she’s never seen him like this, sweaty and filthy and covered in saline solution. She’s never seen him like this.

‘You’re thin,’ she says, ‘I’ll call a nutritionist once you’re cleared, we’ll get your beer belly back.’

‘I didn’t have a beer belly,’ he grunts, and she moves to stand between his feet, laces her hands behind his back.

She smells of perfume that he thinks he bought her, or she bought under his name, and he breathes it in, breathes it deep and holds it. She hauls him up onto his feet, kind of, and gets him sat back on the bed.

‘Where were you trying to go?’ she asks, ‘I’ll get a wheelchair and I’ll take you.’

‘I – ‘

Here he stops, and considers. What _had_ he been trying to do?

‘Uh,’ he adds, helpfully.

Pepper waits, patiently, using the box of tissues on the side table to mop up some of the fluid on the floor, and she waits until he decides what he wanted to do.

‘I want to go home,’ he says, and he looks at her.

She looks at him, and assesses his face the way only Pepper can look at him and know what he’s saying without words, sometimes before even he himself knows what he’s not saying.

‘Okay,’ she says, ‘I’ll get that done. Is there anything else you need? The bathroom, some food, anything at all?’

‘A shower,’ he says, and looks at his splinted feet. ‘Well. A bath. I – I need a phone, too. I gotta – I need to – I need to call the base, to call Rhodey, I gotta – there was a soldier, Pep, there was this soldier, and he went above and beyond, his name was Barton, he – he saved me.’

‘I know,’ she says, and cups his unshaven face very, very gently, in a way she’s never done before, and Tony feels something shiver in his belly.

Starvation, probably.

‘I know,’ she repeats. ‘Rhodey called while you were down, briefed me. He says that Barton made it through the surgery, and once he’s stable and recovering fine, they’re going to transfer him back to New York for rehab and some down time while he decides what he wants to do.’

‘Did he say if Barton got medals?’

‘He says the Purple Heart, but they don’t know what level of service medal. It’s still up for debate.’

Tony wrinkles his nose. ‘Tell Rhodey Barton doesn’t want it.’

Pepper’s smile is crooked, amused, indulgent. Tony ignores it.

‘I'm serious. He doesn’t want medals, he told me while we were in the humvee. Said he didn’t want medals and just wanted to see his kids. I – can we find them, I want to send them something.’

‘We can send them a fruit basket,’ Pepper says, hesitant, and Tony shakes his head.

‘No, no, from me. Personally. I want to send the Bartons something. Like a – a – a coffee maker. Or a washing machine. Something they can _use_. They’ve got kids, gotta be something I can make for them. A night light for them each. There’s two, I think. Is it two? Or three? I forget. I think he said. He said kids, though, said there were kids for sure. I don’t know, I’ll think about it. When am I going home?’

He directs the last to her eyes, and Pepper swallows.

‘I’ll go find out,’ she says, ‘you stay right there, and I’ll get one of the nurses to help you to the bathroom, get you cleaned up.’

Tony is about to protest, but he can smell himself, and he nods. Pepper’s heels click-clack across the linoleum and then the door shuts behind her and the silence is worse than in the cave, full of the humming of equipment and the overhead strip light and the buzzing of his electric heart, still on the trolley. He reaches out and pulls it as close as he can get it, pulls the battery onto his lap, and rubs his thumbs over the caution signs.

**Author's Note:**

> \- The British shit with the longest rifle shot is CoH Craig Harrison, one of our lads. I doubt Clint really minds that he’s no longer the record holder for long rifle shots, but he likes to pretend.   
> \- Clint’s promotion to Captain is unrealistic and virtually impossible, but you bet your ass they did it anyway.  
> \- Hoo boy writing Tony is an experience, but we’ll get through it. Wait until the next big operation! God bless.  
> \- We’ll be jumping around in time for a while, filling out backstories and forward-stories and all the fun things that we love without having to delve too deeply into all the nitty-gritty of military action.  
> \- Hope you enjoyed, lovelies~!


End file.
